In Flight 31 Omake: Who is Archer?
by Xavon Wrentaile
Summary: An expansion of the Heroic Spirit/who is archer discussion from Chapter 31 of In Flight by gabriel blessing. Meant to be mostly tongue in cheek.


_**Author's Note:** an Omake I've wanted to write for _In Flight_ for a while. And now that the recursive fan fic flood gate is open... Takes place in the middle of Chapter 31; not unlike a deleted scene. The first and last lines are borrowed directly from _In Flight_._

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><p>"There seriously was another hero so outrageous that you don't think I can handle it?" Homura noted, once more starting to go a bit limp in the knees. When I nodded, he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.<p>

"Which one was it?" Matsu interrupted, still typing away at her doohickey.

"Which one what?" I countered, not understanding.

"You said each of these heroes was summoned with a 'class'," the brain-type Sekirei elaborated, "Which class was this outrageous person?"

"Archer," I finally said, "It was Rin's Archer."

I realized I should not have mentioned my former lover an instant before the peanut gallery began to rumble. But I was saved inadvertently by Homura.

"Archer? You mean like Robin Hood or William Tell?" he prompted. But before I could answer, he shook his own head, "No, that's not crazy enough, not compared to Hercules or a female King Arthur. What was it Jesus then?"

I smirked at him and raised an eyebrow. That definitely would have qualified as 'outrageous'. I doubted the Christian messiah would have had a wish he would have fought in the Grail War to obtain. And even if he did, I couldn't see him manifesting as an Archer. Caster certainly. And Berserker, just about anyone could be Berserker, and there was that story about him throwing moneylenders out of a temple. Either way, Homura's guess was wrong, so I slowly pivoted my head side to side.

"Okay then, was it Superman?" the male alien demanded, jokingly.

I started to snort in amusement and shake my head again. But I stopped halfway through both.

Assassin had confided in Saber that he was not real. I had identified him to my Sekirei as 'Sasaki Kojirou, the rival of Musashi', but that was false on multiple levels. For one, Kojirou was not the person myth made him out to be. Legend attributed to him multiple fights with Musashi. But the majority of those fights were actually Musashi fighting someone else, and the passage of time ended up linking those fights, and the skill displayed, to Kojirou, until he was almost as famous as Musashi himself. All that aside, Assassin had not been any of the people how had fought Musashi. He was a samurai from a later era, chosen to fulfill the role because his skills were the closest fit.

And Superman was much more famous. As a Japanese citizen it was uncomfortable to admit, but twenty, maybe thirty million people in the world had heard of Sasaki Kojirou. But it would not surprise me to learn that the number of people who knew about the Last Son of Krypton was in the billions. He was probably just as famous as King Arthur, and as many people who had heard of Excalibur could also identify the Shield of House El. So if Sasaki Kojirou could be summoned, why not Clark Kent?

That's not even taking into account Kaleidoscope. There were rumors that one of the heroes in the Third War was from another world. And it looked increasing like Archer had been as well. In all the memories I absorbed from him, there was nothing about the Sekirei. So rather than calling a random person and making him Superman, it should be possible to reach into another world where he existed and grab him.

I could not even deny the Superman would have made a good Archer. Between heat vision, cold breath, shock wave claps, and just flicking stones at people's heads, he certainly had ranged attacks. And with his flight, speed, and invulnerability, he was also suited for independent actions.

"If Matsu is reading Shiro-tan's face correctly," the red head said, "He was going to laugh at Homura-tan's joke, but the more he thinks about it, the more Shiro-tan can't refute the possibility."

I looked at Matsu so I could not see Homura, and nodded. Once.

"So it wasn't Superman, but it could have been?" the fire user was incredulous, "And whoever it is, is more unbelievable than that?"

I bobbed my head again, forcing myself to focus on Chiho.

"Worse than a fictional, alien, comic-book superhero," Homura repeated. Finally, after a moment's tension he pushed himself up and off the door frame he had been leaning on. "I'm going back to bed," he announced, one hand coming up to cradle his temple as he did so. "Hopefully, when I wake up things will make sense again."


End file.
